Rick Is A Metaphor

Saturday, December 4, 2021

Clue 33 Across - Bit of mayo?

. . .

I recommend a new book, In the Midst of Civilized Europe by Jeffrey Veidlinger, University of Michigan history professor.  He writes that "[b]etween 1918 and 1921, more than a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of World War I and the Russian Revolution."  

While the number of victims is imprecise and may be conservative, he concludes that "the pogroms established violence against Jews as an acceptable response to the excesses of Bolshevism" and were an introduction to the Holocaust, where "a third or more of the almost six million Jews killed in the Holocaust perished not in the industrial-scale murder of the camps, but in executions at what historians call killing sites: thousands of villages, quarries, forests, wells, streets and homes that dot the map of Eastern Europe."  https://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/28/world/europe/a-light-on-a-vast-toll-of-jews-killed-away-from-the-death-camps.html?smid=em-share

These murders were close to home, conducted among and often by the local population, sometimes the same people who conducted the pogroms two decades earlier.

. . .

Let's look at John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States.  After winning prizes as an undergraduate for his writings, he graduated Harvard University in 1976 with an A.B. summa cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.  He continued on to Harvard Law School, where he was managing editor of the Law Review. 

But, if you read his opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, eviscerating the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and consider his questioning during oral argument of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the Mississippi case that directly challenges Roe v. Wade, you will be struck by the absence of sechel (שׂכל) (say hell), the common sense that a Jew needs to survive.  Of course, no one could mistake John Roberts for a Jew and that may be part of the problem. 

Sunday, December 5, 2021

No matter how stoic we attempt to be, we almost inevitably wind up purchasing something on Amazon.  Often, we actually deal with a third-party vendor and feel a little better because we are aiding a small tributary of that mighty river.  However, those transactions add substantially to the flow.  According to a new report, "Amazon now pockets a 34 percent cut of the revenue earned by independent sellers on its site."  

https://ilsr.org/amazons-toll-road/

Monday, December 6, 2021

The strangest real estate news in a long time pops up in the sports section and concerns Wayne Gretzky, recognized as the greatest hockey player of all time.  After championship seasons in Edmonton, Alberta, he played in Los Angeles and St. Louis before ending his playing days in New York.  "Gretzky said his family had recently relocated to Missouri from California."  Talk about downsizing. 

. . .

This is the most difficult time of the year.  In-person holiday parties have returned and absences cannot be excused by aberrant electromagnetic conditions.  Gift giving combines the undeserving with the unwanted and the underappreciated.  Then, there are the annual "Best of" lists.  I like lists, I admit.  Throughout the year, I reproduce a large variety from disparate sources.

December, though, inundates us with a gusher of the year's best poems, underarm deodorants, automobile insurance policies, oboe solos, cookie recipes, roller coasters, dry cleaners, glass blowers, island resort hideaways, and vegan pizzas among other information that we would value if only it came in much smaller doses.

Here, though, is a different kind of list, not tied to one year.  The One Day University offers a course by Yale professor Marc Lapadula on "The Story of America in 12 Films."  He organizes the topic in 6 pairs:

The American Dream – "The Godfather (I & II)" & "West Side Story"
Coming of Age – "The Graduate" & "Lady Bird"
Social Justice – "To Kill A Mockingbird" & "Do The Right Thing"
War – "Saving Private Ryan" & "The Best Years Of Our Lives"
On the Road – "Rain Man" & "Thelma And Louise"
The Underdog – "Hoosiers" & "Rocky"

When I looked online, I also found "12 Films That Defined America" by Anthony Sacramone, a writer and editor.  His list is in chronological order:

"Birth of a Nation"

"Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" 

"High Noon"

"The Searchers"

"The Graduate" 

"The Godfather"

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" 

"Network"

"The Right Stuff"

"Malcolm X"

"Team America: World Police"

"The Dark Knight"

You have to pay to hear Lapadula, but you can read Sacramone here.

https://isi.org/intercollegiate-review/12-films-that-defined-america/

Here is my list of 12 films defining America:

"Birth of A Nation"

"Casablanca"

"The Best Years of Our Lives"

"Song of the South"

"High Noon"

"The Searchers"

"The Graduate"

"Easy Rider"

"The Godfather (I & II)"

"Network"

"Wall Street"

"Do the Right Thing"

What's your list?  I'd be happy to explain mine over lunch.

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

We remember Andy.

. . .

I had lunch today with Toby McMullen, rising young comedian, at Stick to My Pot, 224 West 35th Street, featuring potstickers, which accounts for its quaint name.  It's a very small place, decor-less except for white subway tile on parts of the walls.  Seating is only available on 8 stools at a ledge along one wall.  

Everything is made as you order it and we ordered a lot: Spring rolls (2 for $3.49); noodles with scallion sauce ($3.49); chicken wontons with sesame sauce (6 for $7.49); steamed chicken dumplings (6 for $7.49); scallion pancake ($2.99).  Nothing was wonderful, but everything was good.  

Wednesday, December 8, 2021

Lunch today was with Jonah M., working to create his own theater company eventually.  I was not auditioning, however.  We ate at Tacombi, 377 Amsterdam Avenue, which combines a small Mexican menu with a large outdoor facility, well-ventilated and well-heated.  The setting was comfortable enough that we stayed 90 minutes in spite of temperature in the low 40s.

I usually have Tacumbi's beef burrito, but I diversified today, ordering the Baja Crispy Fish Taco ($6.49) and the Norteña quesadilla (Holstein beef) ($8.95).  They were both very good, but small.  I helped fill the gap with the Salsa Cruda Con Totopos ($7.95), red and green salsas with freshly-made chips, pricey but good.  Our large personalities also helped fill out the lunch hour.

. . .

Watch out!  They're back!

Locusts, bell bottoms, shag carpets?  

No.  

Communists.

"Saule Omarova, a Cornell Law School professor whom critics painted as a communist after President Biden picked her for a key banking regulator job, withdrew from consideration for the post on Tuesday."  December 8, 2021

A man was sentenced to jail for 19 months after threatening to murder Democratic members of Congress.  The statements included Facebook posts in which he urged like-minded citizens to “start up the firing squads, mow down these commies, and lets take america back!”  November 22, 2021

"The Democratic Party has turned to communism to gain and control the United States. The inroads of communism are quite clear: socialist programs, politically correct speech, one-sided TV news, teaching twisted American history, illegal voting, organized riots, weakening police control, pushing racial division, illegal entry of immigrants, wrecking private businesses, and interfering with normal American education."  August 26, 2021

I suggest that, with the exception of the picture of Fidel Castro hanging in Senator Marco Rubio's toilet, none of the accusers have ever encountered a Communist or would even know to recognize one outside of Beijing or Pyongyang.

Friday, December 10, 2021

This piece captures two of my obsessions: the music and lyrics of Stephen Sondheim and the drawings of Al Hirschfeld.  They speak for themselves.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/opinion/stephen-sondheim-al-hirschfeld.html

[I think that the article will appear in print over the weekend.]

. . .

Answer = DIA